Picking up the Pieces
by BettySwollocs
Summary: When Tara is broken, Faith picks up the pieces.


Title: Picking up the Pieces

Author: BettySwollocs

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Tara/Faith

Summary: When Tara is broken, Faith picks up the pieces. (AU-ish)

Written for **_dreamerjules!_** In Cady's Femslash Ficathon.

A phone rang obnoxiously from beside the young man's bed as he struggled to gather the faculties with which to answer it. Slowly a messy head of hair shortly followed by a reaching arm appeared from underneath the sheets and flailed in the general direction of the offending object. Reaching blindly for the receiver with one arm, he ran the other firmly across his slowly waking face scratching idly at his stubbled chin as he muttered his greeting:

"Hello?"

The voice on the end of the line is a suitable mixture of amused and apologetic:

"Mornin' Wes. Sorry 'bout the earliness but we have a kind of situation going down."

Pleasantries instantly dispensed with, Wesley moved immediately into efficient watcher mode, his very posture and tone reflecting the change.

"What's happened, Xander?"

"Nothing daemonic" The voice on the line replied, trying, no doubt to calm the watcher but failing miserably. 'Demons' Wesley thinks 'I can deal with. Something tells me this is a people issue, and that's a whole different matter. The voice on the end of the line continues; "You see, it's Tara…"

The Previous Week…

Tara was smiling brightly as she practically bounced down the street towards her home. And afternoon of cancelled lectures had afforded her the chance to surprise her girlfriend of two years for what would be, undoubtedly an entertaining afternoon. With Dawn at school and Buffy off working her new job as a fitness instructor Tara concluded that they'd have every last room of the large detached to themselves. She had plans for every last one of them. Shifting the large paper bag of groceries on her hip and re-balancing the bouquet of flowers in the crook of the opposite arm, Tara considered just how much she had come on in the time she had known Willow. Once painfully shy she could not imagine herself, even six months previously, planning such an afternoon. Neurosis about Willow feeling crowded or not wanting her around so much or overstaying her welcome would crowd her thoughts constantly making her incapable of a bold move such as this.

The slight nerves biting at her insides today, however, Tara was able to quash. 'She loves you', she said to herself for the thousandth time, 'She's never been anything less than pleased to see you in the past, she will love this surprise.'

Turning into the Summers' driveway Tara assured herself of these facts one final time as she took in a steadying breath. On arriving at the door to her home she realised that retrieving the key from her pocket and opening the door with it would be neigh on impossible without sacrificing her armfuls of goodies. Neither objects being stable enough to put down Tara decided to go to the window and signal for Willow to let her in.

Reaching the living room window Tara was surprised to find the curtains partially drawn. Moving to look between them she expectantly scanned the room for occupants, her smile instantly broadening on seeing a dishevelled red head resting on one of the arms of the couch, the rest of her body obscured by its back. Just as Tara was about to call out and make her presence know the head tilted back making its forehead and closed eyes become visible. Tara's heart jumped. She recognised that movement. She'd seen it a hundred times, the result of Willows back arching suddenly. "Surely she isn't…" Tara thought immediately, causing a blush to rise beyond her control. The thought of Willow masturbating in plain sight in the living room sparked a fresh desire in her. As her brain, all of its own accord, filled in all the beautiful views which she couldn't from this angle, see. Another change in the picture before her caused Tara's frantically beating heart to stop, instantaneously turning into freezing lead within her chest. As if watching in slow motion she saw a blonde head of hair appear above the couch's back, mid way down its length, an unmistakeable predatory grin appearing on its features. Features which Tara instantly recognised as those of Buffy Summers.

Three sets of neighbours heard the smashing of a wine bottle as it hit the concrete porch and the uneven steps of a sobbing girl staggering quickly away.

Wesley paced impatiently in the cold bus station, nervously awaiting his charges. From the information given to him on the 'phone that morning he knew it was not going to be a happy reunion. He had wished, for some time for circumstances to arise which would force the Sunnydale gang to pay a visit. These circumstances, however, were definitely not what he'd had in mind. He was prepared to greet a very distraught girl and, to drop her off, a haggard and tired Xander Harris.

Wesley was dragged from his thoughts by a rich voice from somewhere behind him.

"Yo Wes, heads up. They're 'ere." Faith sauntered passed him dropping and crushing a cigarette butt under a heavy boot as he looked up to see the massive greyhound bus pull into its stop. Shaking himself he too stepped forward to scan the line of bedraggled passengers as they emerged from their confinement stretching and shaking their tired limbs. As the flow of people began to slow an unusually sedate Xander appeared in the narrow doorway of the bus. Pausing momentarily to scan the forecourt his eyes quickly met with Wesley and they shared a small, almost involuntary smile of greeting.

As Xander took the large step down onto the oil stained concrete beneath, another figure appeared in the bus's doorway. Her brown hair hung limp and unwashed around a pale face, her features the kind of dull reserved for those in deep pain. Thousands of tears had washed away all trace of life in the girl's eyes. She moved only very slowly and seemingly without any purpose or direction and yet still ended up standing at the feet of her new hosts. Wesley, shocked by the utter desertion of life from the girl's features turned to their other guest, a knee-jerk reaction, looking for warmth. While the two men shared a sympathetic look Faith felt the wrenching of the girls pain also. Without understanding her own actions Faith took a tentative step towards Tara, as if she were a frightened mare in whom any sudden movement could cause to bolt. Reaching forward with a gentle had she cupped the girl's tear-stained face and brought her eyes to meet her own.

Seeing the pure sympathy coming from such an unexpected source caused Tara's delicate hold on her emotions to slip. Fresh tears retraced familiar paths across her cheeks and an automatic gesture of her hand brushed them quickly away. Seeing the pain surge once more within the other girl broke down one more barrier within the slayer. She took her unthinkingly into her arms where she allowed her to sob quietly into her shoulder until that particular wave of anguish subsided.

Tara had been in LA a week before anyone could persuade her to leave her room. Her time was spent mostly in bed, curled up trying to banish the dreams of her disloyal lover. Wesley, ever the hostess, brought her meals regularly but usually took them back untouched. He had also spent many hours at her bedside trying to coerce Tara into talking or leaving her room to spend some time with the others, but Tara seemed too distraught to do either. By the sixth day of her presence the sympathy and patience of her hosts was running out. It was decided that a harsher approach was needed.

It was noon on a sunny Wednesday when the new plan was put into action. No that Tara was aware of any of these things: She had her curtains closed tight so as to barely be aware of the passing of day and night. Keeping track of time seemed irrelevant to her now that she saw nothing positive in her future. It was, however, this time, when there was a loud invasive knock on her door. Tara barely registered the difference between it and the soft knock of Wesley delivering her meals or coming to sit at her side. She did however notice Faith marching purposefully into the room.

"Tara" she announced, "It's time."

The dramatic entrance had shaken her from her thoughts enough to consider the meaning of the statement yet she made no effort to reply. Faith didn't seem to care anyway. Unlike every other visitor she had had since getting there Faith didn't come to her bedside, didn't kneel and look on with pity, didn't ask in that hopeless almost pleading voice "How are you I feeling /I now Tara?". Tara was almost allowed herself to feel relieved by this, before her mind kicked in and told her what this meant.

"I'm being told to leave." Her mind supplied with dread. "I can't stay here, Oh God, Where can I go? I'm not going back there, I can't. Oh God, don't make me go." Tara didn't realise she had started to speak allowed until she felt herself being roughly shaken by the shoulders and opened her eyes to see Faith looking down at her, firmly repeating her name. Tara was instantly afraid and shrunk further back into her pillow to escape. On closer inspection however she realised that Faith's eyes did not carry the anger so often present in them but simple compassion. Tara relaxed slightly and Faith took it as a sign that she would listen to what she had to say.

"You don't have to leave Tara. We would never make you go back there if you didn't want to. You can stay as long as you need, but this isn't healthy Tara. You have to get up." The softness in her voice was beginning to fade, "It's been a week Tara, a week! And you haven't seen the light of day, haven't changed your clothes or showered. You're barely eating and you haven't spoken more than two words to someone outside of your own head in all that time. We given you time to grieve but now its time for you to get back into the real world."

After initially being reassured by Faith's words, Tara was now becoming despondent again. She had curled back up and buried herself into her pillows a few silent tears running down her cheeks. Seeing this Faith pulled out the last stops to try and get through to her.

"For Christ's sake Tara, snap out of it. So she left you. It happens! So she cheated, people do that. Every relationship has to end sometime, eternal love just doesn't exist. But you know what? We get over it, we move on. We have to 'cause the alternative? That's living in misery, constantly haunted by things we can't change and never will. So we deal. We forgive and we move on and we go start the whole fucked up process all over again. We have to do this Tara. If we stop this cycle then we never get the good bits from life, the bits that make all the other useless crap worthwhile. You can't just sit here mourning those good bits any more. You're gonna get out of that god dammed bed, and your gonna have a nice hot shower and put on some of these clothes Xander packed for you a week ago, and then you're gonna come with me out into the real world for a few hours and start making that cycle go round again."

Tara sat in dumb silence, processing this passionate speech. Despite wanting to recoil from the harsh quality in Faith's voice, something in what she was saying made sense. She wasn't sure about forgiving and forgetting, and she definitely wasn't sure about starting all over again, but she knew that she had to do something. Faith was definitely right about one thing, staying as she was, alone in a hotel room wearing week old pyjamas and thinking of everything she had lost forever wasn't an option, and if now had to be the time when it ended then she supposed she might as well not argue.

In the silence following her words Faith watched the stagnant death in the other girls eyes recede a fraction and a moment later she gave a small, solemn nod.

By two pm Faith had gotten Tara showered and dressed and into a small coffee shop a few blocks away. So far the conversation had been nothing but functional, the only information supplied was that needed to agree on a place and order their lunches. With all the force of her usual tact faith decided to initiate some form of meaningful dialogue.

"So d'you wanna talk about her, or should I make some friendly chit-chat?" Shocked by the question Tara almost chocked on her latte but opted for the second option and Faith fell into a grand repertoire of inane conversation. Half an hour later, having demolished toasties, drank several coffees and covered the weather, cheeses most suitable to melting and Wesley's new pet goldfish Tara finally broke.

"You know she actually de-denied it to my face?" the remark came out of nowhere in the middle of Faith's animated description of a demon slaying, yet she didn't need to ask who or what she was talking about. She immediately switched out of inane chatter mode and into patient, listening mode as she gestured for the other girl to continue.

"We had an ar-argument a month or so before…before I b that night /I /b , I s-saw a few looks between her and B-B-Buffy. I asked her outright 'A-are you cheating on me with her?'. She said she wasn't. She Lied. Right to my face. I-I just can't believe that she'd do that." Tears were showing again in Tara's eyes as she relived it yet again.

"It's the lying that's the worst aint it?" Faith replied, " I know when B ditched me 'cause Angel was back the thing that stung most was that he must've been back weeks and she'd been sneaking around spending time with him, and never said a word to me 'bout it" The revelation shocked Tara out of her self-pity,

"You were seeing Buffy then?"

"Yeah, ever since a week or two after I got into town, but, of course, you wouldn't know that would you? No I had to keep quiet 'cause Buffy didn't want her perfect little reputation ruined with a girlfriend."

"Wait a minute. You work for the man who stole your girlfriend! How can you, without, well, h-hurting him!"

"Well y'see, that's what I was trying to say earlier, we forgive and move on because we I have /I to. If I had stayed pissed at Angel like I was I wouldn't have let him talk me into coming here with him. I'd still be the second string slayer back in Sunny'd playing second fiddle to my ex. I was pretty close to hitting rock bottom back then, if I hadn't turned to Angel or support who knows where I'd have ended up."

From this point on the two girls formed a tentative friendship, bonded from their common hurt over their ended relationships. They spent a lot of time in Tara's room watching videos, eating ice cream or just talking. Faith made sure that Tara was eating properly and they each became a comfort to the other in their pain. It wasn't long before a demonic threat called upon Tara's magical knowledge and following its successful vanquish Tara was offered a permanent place on the Angel Investigations team. With a home and a job and friends around her the wounds of her ended relationship began to fade. Every day she felt the pain ebb slightly and noticed, with more than a little surprise what a calming influence on her life Faith was becoming. They would often spend the entire day together when there was no work to be done. Faith would show up every morning without fail bounding through the door with energy, that surely no sane person could muster so early in the morning. Before Tara had opened her eyes Faith would be telling her about the weather, or the demonic event of the night, or her plans for the day. She would usually continue her narrative all the time Tara was showering and dressing and as they made their way to their little coffee shop for breakfast.

It was at one such breakfast, when Tara had been around for a couple of months when Faith finally got up the nerve to do what she had been wanting to do all that time. Something which, strangely enough, she had never felt the need to do before. She was careful to make sure Tara had swallowed her mouthful of latte and returned her mug to the table before she cautiously broached her question.

"Tara..err…I've been meaning to ask you something." Tara looked up from her drink curious as to what could have made the slayer so nervous. Their eyes met for a moment and Faith decided that words had never been her strongest suit. Slowly enough for her to pull away if she wanted to Faith leaned across the small table and kissed Tara gently on the lips.

As she went to pull away Tara followed her and continued the inquisitive kiss until an unsubtle couch from a passing waiter broke them apart. After glaring at the waiter Faith looked hopefully towards Tara who was staring shyly at her lap.

"Can I take that as a 'yes'?" She asked gently

"You never asked a question," Tara muttered in reply.

"Go out with me? Just a date to see how we go. Y'know, wear something pretty, go out somewhere special, let me kiss you goodnight?" Tara was shocked by the almost pleading tone in Faith's voice but she considered her answer carefully. Would she go out with the undeniably attractive woman who had brightened her life so much in the last weeks? Faith had been her reason to get out of bed in the morning for weeks now. She had been the best friend Tara had ever had, and she couldn't imagine having to go on without her now. She also thought about how serious Faith was about this. As far as she knew, from the time she had come to LA two months ago until today the self-confessed 'use 'em and lose 'em' girl hadn't been on a single 'date' hadn't stayed out all night once. What would she rather trust, the reputation of a girl mostly learned through other people, or her honest belief in her character derived from spending nearly every waking hour with her for the last eight weeks? The choice was obvious suddenly; it was the only one she could make.

"Yes, Faith." She finally said after what to both of them felt like hours of deliberation but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. "Yes, I'll go out with you, yes I'll wear something pretty, yes, I'll let you kiss me goodnight." And with that she boldly leaned over the table again, and this time even the third and forth angry coughs from patrons and staff of the café didn't part them.

It was 2.27 exactly, the following evening when Faith knocked on the door to Tara's room. Tara knew this because she had been pacing nervously constantly checking her watch since 6.45. Faith wasn't late it was just that Tara had been so nervous about their date that she had started to prepare at four and so had been completely ready and getting more and more nervous for over an hour. When she finally heard Faith's familiar enthusiastic knock she was at the door in seconds. When she opened it the site before it shocked her into enough to silence the friendly greeting she had planned. Faith wore a cream coloured, linen trouser suit over a simple black blouse. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders and in her hands rested in front of her hips was a single red rose. Tara had somehow imagined Faith turning up for their date in her normal leathers and tank top she hadn't considered that Faith would own clothes like these. While completely floored by the vision in front of her Tara must have missed something she said, as the next thing she was aware of was her gentle laughter,

"Yo, Earth to Tara, do you read me?" Tara shook her head to clear the fog of appreciation,

"S-sorry, d-did you say something?" She asked embarrassed by her own reaction.

"I said you look gorgeous T," Faith replied with a beautiful smile, "And this is for you" she added holding out the rose she held for Tara to take.

After Tara had got over Faith's appearance and regained her normal ability to communicate. The evening went…well a lot like any other evening they had spent together only in somewhat finer surroundings. Faith had chosen the nicest restaurant that her meagre salary could afford and hence the food was wonderful, the service polite and the décor was beautiful.

Tara didn't really notice any of these things however, for she was too busy absorbing all the minute changes in the way Faith behaved now that this occasion was officially a 'date'. She had pulled Tara's chair out for her when they arrived and taken her coat. But subtler than this were the little glances that she was sure weren't there before, and the way she reached for her hand over the table. Tara wasn't sure if it was her own new awareness creating it, or he sum of all these little gestures of Faith's but the atmosphere between them was different tonight. In an entirely not unpleasant way. There was a sexual tension present that she was sure hadn't been there before. Although she wracked her brains to think of previous instances where Faith actions could be construed as flirtatious, she couldn't think of any specific examples outside of the standard Faith operating level of flirtatiousness, she had actually once seen her trying to sweet talk a **vending machine** into giving her the drink she wanted, after all.

Tara fond herself reacting to the atmosphere and she supposed probably adding to it. Every so often her gaze would fall to Faiths lips as she spoke of licked a drop of red wine that had escaped her glass. Or even further to the 'V' of that black silk blouse now that she had taken off her jacket. And it may have been Faith who first reached for her hand across the table, but it was definitely Tara who started slowly stroking her thumb across the knuckles she found in her hand.

When their meals were finished and their two bottles of fine wine drunk and their triple chocolate ice cream sundae had been shared Faith suggested that they take a walk around the park across the street. The park was deserted except for the slowly moving birds swimming sedately in the lake at its centre. The subtle movement they created cause tiny waves glittering in the moonlight. They two stood silently hand in hand watching the scene for a precious few moment before Faith turned to face Tara with a serious look to her face.

"I've had a wonderful night y'know?" She said with the utmost sincerity and her tone made Tara a little afraid that there was going to be a 'but' to the sentence. When there was only silence and Faith smile Tara replied with the only thought she had.

"Me too, Faith, me too." Faith appeared relieved instantly but spoke again in doubt,

"Do you think you want to do this again? Maybe, y'know, regularly?" Tara found Faith's sudden nervousness adorable and she chose to reply the same way as she inadvertently had when Faith had first asked her out. She leant over to Faith and kissed hr soundly on the lips. This time however the kiss was not the gentle, questioning, self-conscious kiss it had been in their coffee shop. It was more the sure passionate kiss of a woman who had been driven to distraction by the site of her gorgeous date sitting opposite her for the last few hours. Not one to be outdone Faith responded to it with equal fervour. When they finally broke apart and Faith had regained enough breath to speak she repeated yesterday's question.

"Can I take that as a yes?"

"No" Tara replied, utterly shocking Faith, but the silly grin on her face belied the apparent sentiment. "I don't **think** I want to do this again, I **know **I want to do it againAnd I don't want to do it regularly, I want it constantly." Tara continued to grin stupidly as Faith embraced her in a giant bear hug, lifted her from the ground and spun her around and around by the side of the lake. The spinning had inevitably lead to more kissing which lead to the wandering of Faiths hands. This then lead to Tara's need to get them somewhere warmer and more private as quickly as possible.

They were lucky it was so late when they got back to the Hyperion that only Angel was about, and that he had the decency to walk away when he heard Tara giggle and pull faith down onto the lobby's couch. They were also lucky that Tara's room was on a completely different floor to all the other inhabited rooms of the building as they found out that given the right encouragement Tara could be really quite vocal.

When the morning came Faith rested leisurely against the pillows as Tara finally dragged herself out of bed. On returning from the shower she remarked,

"Your unusually quiet this morning Faith." There was a soft laugh from the bed as Faith replied,

"Well I don't have to distract myself from the semi-naked Tara body anymore do I? I'm allowed to look all I want." Tara blushed and pulled her robe tighter around her even as she was smiling at the complement. Hiding her eyes behind her wet hair she didn't see Faith crawl over the bed to meet her but only felt herself being pulled down onto the bed.

"Come to think of it," Faith continued over Tara's giggles, "I can do more than look now can't I?"

And she could. Much, much more.


End file.
